Why Should We Get an In-Home Trainer?
by Stacy Greer, Adventures in Canine Training, Inc.
www.aictdfw.com 
Dog training has been around for decades but now, more than ever, dogs are becoming true members of the family. With this fact we come to realize that our four-legged family members need to be well-mannered and listen to us so everyone can enjoy them!
You can find just about any type of dog training today—group classes, private lessons at a facility, boarding-and-training and even training at the trainer’s home for a few weeks. However, to have the dog that everyone wants to love and enjoy takes a true commitment and only one-on-one training can provide that.
One-on-one training can be completely customized (when you find the right trainer) to your needs, goals and priorities. It can work with your lifestyle and what works best for you, your family and best of all—your four-legged companion!
Not only is in-home training beneficial to the dog owners but it is great for scheduling! You can schedule it around your own schedule to accommodate the rest of your life!
We value the importance of every aspect of a puppy’s life, including socialization, proper nutrition, exercise, training and activities. However, for years, people have preached that puppies do best when put in a puppy class first for training. Our trainers at Adventures in Canine Training (based in the Dallas/Forth Worth Metroplex) do not agree with this for young puppies. Let us list reasons why in-home training is best for young puppies (and adult dogs alike).
- First, puppies are too young to join a class until they have at least 2-3 rounds of vaccinations to ensure their health and safety. They could be 12 weeks older by this time and many critical learning phases have been passed up.
- Puppies need to bond to you in their environment. When a new puppy is brought into your home he/she is most likely scared, nervous and afraid at first. They have been taken from the only home they have ever known as well as their furry dog mamma and littermates. Therefore you need your puppy to adjust to his/her new home properly.
- While adjusting to the new homes, a puppy needs to have leadership, rules, boundaries and training in place to grow up to be a well-rounded, confident and happy puppy. This is best done in the home and can start as early as 8 weeks of age.
- We discuss how to properly socialize your puppy, as we do in fact stress and understand the importance of this for puppies. However, sadly, most places and trainers go about it the wrong way these days. Puppy class is not a good way to socialize your puppy! (We discuss socialization in detail in our in-home training!)
- Setting training up from day one makes raising a puppy so much more pleasurable. You can curb unwanted behaviors or prevent them from ever occurring at all!
- Once training has begun the puppy will find a new respect for you, your family and his/her new environment.
- If your puppy does not have any training under his belt, so to speak, at home he will definitely not do very well outside of the home in a group setting or in a strange place. It can be overwhelming and often traumatic to take a young puppy to training outside the home without starting leadership, rules and training in the home first.
- We highly encourage our puppy owners to join a group class, once basic training has been well established in the home. We offer an array of wonderful classes for puppies and dogs once they have successfully completed in-home training!
Our in-home programs are extremely successful as we are able to train the owners as well as the dogs! Truly successful dog training lies with the owner and their abilities to use the resources and training we provide to the best of their abilities!
Sending a dog away for training is not a good idea. You do not form a relationship with your dog and from a trainer’s perspective—any trainer can train a dog. So what happens when the dog goes back home with the trainer absent? The dog can quickly become “un-trained”. The relationship lies with the trainer and the dog, not the owner and the dog.
And lastly, in-home training is fun for the whole family! You can learn so many things about dogs and behavior that you may not have known. These things will help you along the road throughout your dog’s life!
Our trainers are all highly skilled, trained and certified in just about all areas of dog training. We offer all aspects of puppy raising, training and socialization as well as training for dogs of all ages. We have in-home training and many great, fun group classes as well. We also offer therapy dog training and then visiting hospitals through our non-profit therapy dog organization—Paws Partners, Inc.
(Thank you, Stacy Greer, for providing this helpful article to our readers! Below is Stacy’s contact information. Linda Rogers, Timshell Farm).
Stacy Greer
Adventures in Canine Training, Inc.
formerly Unleashed Dog Training Services
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web: www.aictdfw.com/
email: stacy@aictdfw.com
phone: 214-731-3191, ext 4
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